Through Chicago to Joliet

We left Monroe Harbor Thursday, Sept. 27 to begin our trek down the river. Beautiful day. There was another boat which left the harbor as we did-Swan Song- and we learned they were going our way. Next picture is the lock entrance and # 3 is one of them leaving the lock behind us.

Next shows us following Swan Song...we thought it wise to let them go ahead. If they made it under the bridges, so would we ! The lowest bridge was 17 ' and we cleared it just fine. In all, we would go under 33 bridges on the Chicago River which is 5.8 miles. It then connects to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal where there were 19 more bridges in 16.4 miles.

It was pretty awsome to go through downtown on the river. There was surprisingly a lot of quiet spots with fountains, gardens tucked in along the water for people to sit.

This was our first tow encounter and at the time, it seemed pretty big to me. But this was small compared to the ones we'd meet and pass later....

Here we started to see more the more commercial part of Chicago... While we were waiting for this Amtrack Bridge to open, we watched these men doing tai-chi in the park. Here again were others just walking,enjoying the water.

Now this is in the industrialized part of Chicago.And finally, the confluence of the Sanitary Canal and the Cal-Sag waterway which is the route that boats higher than 17' have to take to get south of Chicago. That route I understand is not as scenic as going through downtown.

It got a little more industrial in this part of the Illinois River where there were more and more barges hauling salt, sand, and who knows what. We ended up following a cruiser being piloted by a delivery captain and he obviously had done this many times --he knew the language and lingo of the tow captains. This was quite an experience--pass on one whistle (the right) pass on 2 whistles (the left), sit tight, and let the tow maneuver, or don't pass now. At this point, there were 4 of us pleasure cruisers (5 counting the delivery captain). Here we are tied up to the bollards at the entrance to a lock. Sometimes we'd have to wait 30-45 minutes or up to 1/1/2 hours.
Here we are all going through Joliet, IL where there were a number of bridges that had to lift..and as we passed under one, the next one would open.
There was a long delay at the last lock that we were going to go through that day. So finally after a long and memorable day, we tied up to the wall here in Joliet for the night.

Chicago Harbor

Here is Bellissimo tied up at the wall in Monroe Harbor which is close to Navy Pier and within walking distance of Millenium Park.
This is Bob in front of the fountain in Grant Park which was close by the harbor where we stayed.



This was the view at night from our boat...pretty neat. There were many joggers, bikers and people walking in the area along the waterfront.

Here is a view of Navy Pier from the water...Haley and Sammy were here with us last summer.

Here is is rest of Navy Pier with the downtown skyline in the background. You can see the ferris wheel here.

And the Planetarium on the other end of Monroe Harbor

Here is the Chicago Lighthouse...there were quite a few sailboats in the harbor the day we arrived..

Here is the Chicago skyline view as we were approaching.

Bellissimo resumes Loop

Racine Yacht Club


Entrance to harbor

These photos are of the Racine Harbor. I regret that I didn't take more while we were here because the town has a lot to offer.

The waterfront is beautiful with a 900 slip city owned marina with nice clean restrooms and showers plus floating docks. There is a 12 ramp fishing launch across the street from the marina. The downtown is only a block away and the library and farmer's market are within a few blocks along with museums, etc. There are condos all along the marina-some high rise, some 2-3 story. More are being built. The district of historic homes has beautiful houses of different styles of architecture close to the waterfront. Bus service out to the malls, etc.

While we were there, we had a chance to visit with Iras and John who are also Burnt Store Marina residents. They have a condo in the tall building in the picture. Iras invited me to go to her quilting guild meeting. Many members brought their projects to show and there was a speaker from Madison. All these inspired me again so I bought another book--hopefully this will help me become an expert quilter !

To update you on the engine problem--we did have model with the defective valve and were given a replacement engine, courtesy of Yanmar and thanks to the co-ordination of the folks at Racine Riverside Marina. The folks there, Marc the service manager and Mike the diesel mechanic were super and deserve many many stars for their service. They responded to our questions and returned our calls quickly. The old engine was removed the week after Labor Day (big job-800 pounds) and the new one put in the following week. We had the sea trial with Mike on the 22nd and had to wait for some additional parts he wanted to order. Seems the gauges for the temperature and oil pressure were'nt quite calibrated to this engine. Those came in on the 25th and Mike then gave us the heads up to go.

While this whole episode was upsetting because of the potential cost of replacing an engine and the delay or possible discontinuance of our trip, we feel pretty lucky in the end. First because it happened where it did--Riverside Marine was here in the area and second, because of when it happened--a month later and we would've been past the time for filing a claim for the problem. Plus, we got to go home for a while and see the kids and grandchildren-we babysat Annika who is a little jabbermouth, David the football star and Samantha who is growing up and like to spend time with her friends. And we had time to get the cabin ready for winter. What more can we ask for? Now on the way to Chicago--a beautiful day. Should be able to start down the river system tomorrow.

Holland to Racine

Friday, August 31. We left for Racine on a picture perfect morning. The lake was calm for the most part and we were traveling with Fid and Deb on See Life.


About 2/3 across the motor gave a loud shudder and there was black smoke from the exhaust. Bob slowed the engine down and went down to check the engine. I called to Deb and Fid who were about 1 1/2 miles ahead of us and they turned around and came back to check us out. They stayed with us the rest of the way until a mile or so from the Racine Harbor and they had to rev their engine before they stopped for the day. That's when ours quit entirely ! So a call to the harbor master resulted in him sending out a Racine county Sheriff's tow for us.

This Sgt. Bill Halliday sure knew what to do and calmly directed us and his assistant Jake Hollow. He maneuvered us so beautifully into the harbor and into the slip which we had reserved. I should also add that this was a free service from the Sheriff's department !

Since there was no mechanics available on this holiday week-end, we came straight on home to the cabin. We'd planned to leave the boat there for a couple weeks anyway so that we could go to Bob's class reunion and tend to some things at the cabin.
Here's what we've learned about the boat. Some Yanmar engines built between 1996 and 2002 had faulty valves and of course, ours falls within the model and serial numbers affected. The mechanic who looked at the boat referred us to the website www.yanmarsettlement.com. So Yanmar is offering extended warranties for these engines...ours had 830 hours or so on it when this happened. So now, the mechanic is trying to get the okay from Yanmar to start taking the motor out before he gets busy with haul-out duties. So we wait. Hopefully, it'll be replaced and we'll be on our way again by the end of September. Until then, we'll post progress.